BY JIM MUSTIAN
A veteran New York lawman admitted Friday that he lied to a grand jury about a cocaine bust that sent a Bronx man to jail for more than four months.
Sean Fogarty, a Yonkers police detective, agreed to a “conditional discharge” that required he retire from law enforcement. He pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of perjury, prosecutors said.
Fogarty had been assigned to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force in April 2018 when he and other officers searched the home of Calvin Powell.
The search warrant allowed officers to search the first two floors of Powell’s building but omitted the third floor, according to court records. Powell lived on the first floor apartment with his family and rented out the top floors.
Fogarty and other officers broke into the third floor apartment and found 17 kilograms of cocaine in a closet — drugs Fogarty later insisted had been found in Powell’s possession.
Days after the search, Fogarty falsely told a Manhattan grand jury the narcotics had been found on the second floor of the residence, according to a criminal complaint filed by the office of District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. The seizure had been “outside the scope of the search warrant,” the complaint says.
The grand jury indicted Powell on drug charges in 2018, and he was jailed for more than four months before prosecutors dismissed the case in light of photographs from the bust that contradicted Fogarty’s statements.
Powell had been on probation at the time of the search after serving a 10-year federal sentence for selling cocaine.
He filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Fogarty and several other law enforcement officials seeking damages. The lawsuit says Powell’s father died while he was in custody, and that he was denied the opportunity to be with him during his finals days.
Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino announced this week that prosecutors will review all “past and pending” cases Fogarty handled. “If we determine that any conviction was the result of an illegal action by Detective Fogarty,” he said, “we will immediately move to vacate the conviction.”
Fogarty did not return calls seeking comment. The Yonkers Police Department declined to comment. The DEA also has not commented.
Fogarty’s guilty plea will not affect his pension under New York law. Online records show he earned nearly $200,000 this year.
Naomi Puzzello, a spokeswoman for Vance, said Fogarty faced a felony perjury count but prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge in light of Fogarty’s “willingness to accept responsibility.”
Alberto Ebanks, Powell’s attorney in the drug case, said that “being allowed to retire with your pension after a man faced a quarter of a century behind bars based on testimony that was patently false doesn’t seem right.” But, he added, “I’m sure that the District Attorney’s Office gave serious consideration to what an appropriate sentence would be.”
